


Rotting

by orphan_account



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Family Feels, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maxine's perspective Episode 6, Season 2.<br/>Maxine is a character set up for us to absolutely detest; this story examines her change in behaviour from  utter confidence and joy hurting Amy, to a shaking of her beliefs at the fete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rotting

**Author's Note:**

> Characters and plot property of 'In the Flesh' and its writers. Written only with love :)

Maxine Martin understands love for the last time as she stabs the rotter, Amy Dyer.

Her brother is in her heart, her blood, every breath she takes for oxygen.  
In the seconds, and the motion of the knife hitting in and out, new blood splattering her face and dress, she hopes it will bring him back.  
Just one more thing: Vicar Oddie, Henry Lonsdale, Amy...just one last thing: person.

'Amy Dyer, you're the first and the last.'

Maxine does not hear Phillip scream, or tear Amy away from her. She never did think much of him, the wanker with a crew cut and puppy-dog aspirations to power. As he pushes Maxine in the face trying to get in front of the knife, she already knows it's too late: Amy is going to die.  
Exhausted, Maxine starts to lose her grip on the knife, pulling it into her dress so it will not fall. It falls to the grass of the graveyard and she picks it up: again, again.  
Her feet move, synchronized falling . Stumbling over the graves, she waits for the ground to suck her back up.  
Every moment since he died she has been remaking her life, trying to get back the past. She did not mean to do it. Why didn't he come back when the others came back? Why didn't he come back?  
Standing over his grave, she starts the shaking. In the second rising, he will awaken. He will come back. All the good ones will come back. She will be forgiven. She will be...

Jemima Walker is in her head. The girl who murdered that boy rotter. The one who wanted to tell. She _knows_ her: badass bravado holding her weapons like a teddy bear; wanting to be safe, secure, not...blamed; the choppy hair; the swagger; the stumble in her voice; the shake, denial, eyes clenched shut; the alcohol on her breath, trying to make it all go away. How young is she? Older than Maxine when...Maxine feels her brother die in her head, again.

Her eyes are tears; her knees are the earth of his grave; Oh, she is shaking now.

It's relatively normal to imagine killing your boss, your ex, that girl talking smack on the street, but she never thought she'd have the courage to do it, to cope with that horror. But I would do anything for you, she promises him. Her hand on his train, all its points sticking into her palm. Her dress is mud and blood and she can see him now; his beautiful face, so kind, obscuring Dyer.

Amy Dyer is not real, not a real person; that rotter deserved to die; she would kill every last one of them for even a chance to bring him back; she will kill every last one; all rotters deserve... She begins to breathe again. Disgust and her righteous anger giving her body strength, lifting her limbs up away from that dreaded earth.

Everyone hates her here.

Everywhere she goes they hate her 'here'.

She knows. She knows in the way they order expensive drinks without offering to buy the next round; in the way they exploit her labour to rile energy and anger; in the way they vote, because they need someone to ignite THEIR bomb. Oh God.  
Had she always been so different, in this tiny town so white, grey, and filled with hate?  
These people do not care about her brother.  
They never cared about her brother, another tiny black boy: dead.

Her body lurches now, almost another rotter, another rabid. She moves through the graves touching her skin, holding the surface smooth and clear, no blood or bones exposed. She is not one of them.  
Yellow tape, mud browned grass, the grey sky, the grey concrete walls, the grey skin that man, that woman, that rotter, that wall, that stone, that pavement, that...  
door she slams her face against, almost. The village fete. Clip clop her shoes a rhythm, heartbeat, make.

_'Excuse me, excuse me, I have a message of hope for all of you, we can conquer our greatest enemy today, we can conquer death.'_

Her brother died here when he was very young.  
She said it was an accident.  
He should not have been here.

He fell.

She talks as if watching herself from the back of her head.

_'All those terrible things we've done can be wiped clean, a fresh start, no grief, no more guilt, and all that needs to happen is a second rising,'_

She cannot stop shaking.

_'Come on Danny, Come on,'_

**Author's Note:**

> The title references Maxine 'rotting from the inside out,' becoming far more of a monster than most of the 'rotters' on the show.  
> One of the cruelest most unfeeling characters (probably only rivaled by Bill and Gary) the plot does give her a reason for her behaviour: guilt and love surrounding Dani's death, but it's nowhere near enough to humanise her actions.  
> She reflects well the bureaucracy of genocidal or discriminative policies and how selfishness in the name of love can so severely harm others.  
> However, lots of people in the show have done truly terrible things, or murdered others, thinking about her post finale is interesting because she could be a person to regain some sense of humanity, guilt over her actions. She may even get Dani back, challenging her to become a person worthy of a family.


End file.
